Tax havens are the most important single reason why poor people and poor countries stay poor.
Investigative journalist Nicholas Shaxson exposes the hidden architecture of the global financial system - the offshore networks that allow corporations and elites to avoid tax, hide wealth and distort democracy.
From the City of London to the Caribbean and beyond, Treasure Islands reveals how trillions vanish into secret offshore tax havens every year. Engrossing, urgent and deeply researched, it’s essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the corruption at the heart of the global economy and how it can be stopped.
‘An utterly superb book’ Jeffrey Sachs
‘Fascinating, chilling’ Paul Krugman
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9780099541721
Number of pages: 384
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 24 mm
Weight: 274 g
Language: English
An utterly superb book - Jeffrey Sachs
Shaxson combines meticulous research with amusing anecdotes, resulting in a very readable account of the murky world of offshore and a strong moral message that the system needs to be changed - Financial Times
Excellent... Shaxson comes as close as anyone ever has in getting the crux of the tax haven conundrum, which is to attempt to answer the question: why are they tolerated? - Evening Standard - Evening Standard
A fascinating, chilling book - Paul Krugman
Not just a crucial exposé of the corrupt systems endemic in the global economy, but also a rousing call to do something about them - Holly Kyte, Sunday Telegraph
Perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year - George Monbiot, Guardian
Trade and investments can play a profoundly productive role on the world economy. But so much of the capital flows that we see are associated with money laundering, tax evasion, and the wholesale larceny of assets often of very poor countries. These thefts are greatly facilitated by special tax and accounting rules or designed to "attract capital" and embodying obscure and opaque mechanisms. Shaxson does an outstanding and socially valuable job in penetrating the impenetrable and finds a deeply shocking world - Nicholas Stern
At last, a readable - indeed gripping - book which explains the nuts and bolts of tax havens. More importantly, it lays bare the mechanism that financial capital has been using to stay in charge: capturing government policy-making around the world, shaking off such irritants as democracy and the rule of law, and making sure that suckers like you and me pay for its operators' opulent lifestyles - Misha Glenny, author of McMafia
The struggle against money power is a struggle for human freedom, and Nicholas Shaxson's investigation is a timely exposé of where the plunder is buried - John Pilger, broadcaster and author of Heroes
A gripping read... an account illuminated by anecdotes that are often more James Bond than eurobond... Shaxson shows us that the global financial machine is broken and that very few of us have noticed - New Statesman
Please sign in to write a review
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?